Everything I wanted
by Laurissy
Summary: Tali/Shepard one shot take place after blue ending. It's basically Shepard's ghost saying goodbye to his love and helping her to get on with her life. I wrote this to give me a little bit of closure on the game and the whole franchise in general


Everything I ever wanted

**A/N So yeah first mass effect fanfic. Anyway this is just Shepard saying goodbye to Tali after mass effect 3 after I chose the blue ending. It's interesting but I'm actually beginning to think that the blue ending is the best out of all three endings. Who would have thought that the illusive man was actually right about something? Think about it no one dies and Shepard gets to guide the universe for all time. I never liked the green ending because it seems to exist on the assumption that synthetics and organics can never live in peace and throughout my play through I saw it wasn't so. I got the geth and the quarians to live peacefully side by side. I helped Edi hook up with Joker. So basically screw you God child.**

Tali looked around her room, it was big and quiet two things Tali still wasn't used to. She went to her balcony, she looked at the beautiful view of her home world and she couldn't help but weep. Ever since she was a little girl, she'd dreamt of the home world of returning triumphant and destroying the geth. But now the geth were helping build their home world better and stronger than it had ever been before. This was her father's dream, to have her on the home world like he promised. But he wasn't there.

As she went back into her room she saw how empty it was. She took the rock of her desk; he'd given her in his hand. It was the only physical thing she had of him with her. In the migrant fleet, she'd never had any keepsakes but then again nobody did. There was no room to put them and now she had a whole world and nothing to put in it. She'd been living here for 9 months and there were no photos, no keepsakes just her ever reliable Omni tool, her datapads and some furniture.

She sat on the edge of bed and she didn't even feel sad. When Shepard had died in the crucible, she cried behind her helmet every night but she never let the admiralty board see her tears. As she threw herself into her work rebuilding her home world, she cried less and less. But whenever she wasn't working, she felt empty and despondent.

"He promised" she muttered to herself and again she didn't feel sad but she felt grief. It felt as though she'd been stabbed in the heart and although the wound was gone. The infection was still there eating away at her. She knew there were no guarantees. Hell she knew that when she first agreed to go with him to face Saren. A part of her wondered why she was putting aside her pilgrimage for citadel politics. She told herself that it was because of the geth that she couldn't watch them cause more suffering and as a quarian it was her right to stand against them for the greater good but it was more than that. It was because of Shepard, the man who saved her life, the man who was above the council, the man who fought.

How could she resist that? She was young idealistic and here was a man who was determined to save the whole galaxy even if the whole galaxy sided against him. She fell in love with him on that mission against Saren. He'd come down to check on her every now and then and she tried to tell him how she felt but she never found the words and besides it wasn't like he actually reciprocated her feelings and then he ended up with Liara. That asari bitch. She was so perfect, sophisticated and sexy and what was she a grease monkey in a protective suit. She tried to ignore it and focus on the mission but everyone talked about it. Ashley wondered what he saw in her. Wrex commented on how squishy asari are. Joker kept speculating about what they did. It was enough to make her go insane. She just focused on her work and once her work with Saren was done she left, most of them stayed behind on the Normandy after Saren, they had a purpose to defeat the reapers. But her people needed her and her data so she left them.

When she heard about Shepard's death on the original Normandy. She cried more than she thought possible but she got on with her life. Then he stormed into her life with his gun out and with two Cerberus operatives trailing behind him. She didn't know what to make of it but instead she focused on her mission to help Veetor and to try and make sure Prazza didn't do something stupid. He asked her to join with him and she was tempted to drop everything and join him but she couldn't do that to her people so she said no and watched the Normandy fly off with a pain in her heart.

But when he saved her again on Haelstrom. She joined him, how could she resist. She'd lost most of her crew to find out information that was of no practical use. She wanted to feel like she was accomplishing something again. So she went off with her hero and quickly got into her old habit of admiring him from a distance whilst he went on oblivious. Then she was accused of treason and Shepard went to the migrant felt to plead her case. He protected her father's name and made her feel special when he talked about how much she meant to his mission. She left feeling bitter though. Her father had died to give her a new life. She felt guilty, ashamed, and angry at him for putting her through this. It was nice when Shepard came down to talk about it.

Then she caught a cold and she gave everything away. How he was the only one she would ever consider linking suits with and how desperately she wanted to touch him and then a miracle happened in the light of that wonderful energy. He said he felt the same and then she'd made love for the first time in her life. She'd had sex before using a stim suit but she'd never felt anyone inside her before never felt so happy or alive.

She closed her eyes and moved her hands to where he touched her as she lay on the bed thinking about him. The ecstasy of the memory made her quiver inside her suit. Then she heard something.

"452?" She called to her geth servant. She didn't like having a geth servant because she thought they should go out and make their own lives but he was insistent that his core programming meant serving was what he was best at and would be happiest doing that. But no one answered and then she rebreed she'd sent 452 on an errand and he wouldn't back for at least an hour.

"Who's there?" she asked then she immediately felt stupid figuring it was probably just the wind and that she hadn't grown accustomed to it yet.

"It's me Tali" Shepard said calmly.

"It can't be" she said she went to her knees and the tears that she though had run dry came rushing back.

"Where are you?" she asked with desperation in her voice and all her hopes and dream sprang back to life at the thought that he was alive again.

"I've come to see you" he said gently and there he was standing in front of her. His alliance uniform his short dark hair, his sharp eyes. But he was hologram, like Edi was before she took over Eva core's body.

"Why are you just a hologram?" she asked confused.

"The man I once was felt regret at losing you and he knew you deserved an explanation I am here to give it Tali" he said "It's hard to explain."

"It's not like I'm going anywhere" Tali said disbelievingly.

He smiled sadly at her and began to speak. "He had a choice Tali, he was presented a choice and he didn't like any of them. He knew all of them would take me from you in one way or the other. He was given the chance to destroy the reapers."

"Why didn't you?" she said with astonishment the fact that the reapers were rebuilding the mass relays and generally not shooting anyone was confusing the whole galaxy.

"Destroying the reapers would have meant destroying all artificial life even if he survived; he knew he wouldn't want to live with so much death on my hands."

Tali thought of 452 and how considerate he'd been and she thought of the postcard Edi had sent her from her honeymoon with Joker. "What did you do?" she was scared now and there was still a part of her that felt hopeful.

"The creator offered him a chance to merge all life synthetic and organic but he didn't think it was right to force the universe to change. He thought that if he went through with this, he would be destroying something unique. He would be destroying what he'd fought to protect. He chose control"

"Why are you talking as if Sheppphard's dead you're here, I can see you."

"The man you knew is gone Tali. I have been made out of his memories and emotions, I am not him though, and I exist to bring order and stability to the universe to make it a better place and to assure that nothing like this ever happens again."

Tali felt all her hopes die again and the pain was so raw that she spat out in anger "Why are you here then to torment me?"

"I am here to explain and I'm here to tell you that he died for something great he died for the many." He said robotically.

She looked at him with anger in her eyes "What do I care for the many, you died Shepard and you promised you stay to help me rebuild my home world" there was a small part of her that felt she was being childish but she'd never been so angry how dare he come here and expect her to be happy to knew that Shepard was a hero. She knew that the whole boshtet galaxy knew that.

"He was looking forward to living with you on Rannoch, he wanted to build his house here, he wanted to adopt a couple of war orphans, he wanted to become an archaeologist and help you rediscover you're heritage."

"Then why didn't he?" Tali shouted angrily.

"Because he couldn't lose any more people. So many people died in this war Tali; he had to make sure that this would never happen again."

Thant sounded like Shepard, and her anger started to subside and she felt the emptiness coming back. "There is more" he said "He wanted you to go and live your life, he helped you regain your home world, make sure you get the chance to live in it."

"I try but it seems so pointless without you" she said crying again.

"Tali, you were the most wonderful, inventive and amazing person, he ever met and of his death caused you to give up on life then his sacrifice meant nothing."

"What about the many" she said deflated.

"The many are important but you were at the centre of the universe, I need to tie up the loose ends of his life so I can go forward and carry out his legacy" She tried to grab his hand but it went right through and this Shepard barely seemed aware of the gesture. She knew not that her Shepard was dead but a part of her was happy that he'd thought of her and that no matter what happened, that commander Shepard would be looking out for us all.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked looking into his computer generated eyes.

He smiled "I want you to live in a universe without reapers; I want you to rebuild Rannoch better than before, I want you to find somebody and I want you to make them happy and for them to make you happy."

"How's anyone going to compare with you Commander Shepard saviour of the galaxy?" She asked pleadingly.

"He didn't think he was that special but he wanted to make sure you remember him as a man with dreams, vices and a really big nose."

She giggled "You look" she stopped herself "He looked perfect to me."

He smiled "I know it won't be easy Tali but he'd never seen you back away from a challenge and this is the greatest challenge of all to live and find a purpose and he wished he could be here to face it with you.

She looked at him and she couldn't help but feel pain but that pain was worth clinging on to, she didn't want to spend the rest of her life not living she wanted to experience life on the home world, The life that her father and the man she loved had died to give her. She needed to use that pain to inspire her and to make both sacrifices worth it. "I understand, Keelah se lai"

"Keelah se lai" he replied and he turned away.

"Will I ever see you again?" she asked and she had no idea what she wanted the answer to be.

"No Tali, I'm not him," he said sadly.

"Oh, goodbye" she said at a complete loss at what to say.

"Goodbye Tali' Zorah vas Rannoch, I'll always remember you."

Tali smiled and said "me too" and with that he faded as if he'd never been there to begin with. She wondered if anyone would believe her if she told them what happened. Probably not she thought. But it didn't matter she had hope again and as she looked at her home for the first time. It really felt like home.

**A/n So just got round to finishing this basically, and as I've said it's basically my thoughts on the endings, I don't know even with the extended cut I'm still a little disappointed with the endings but I feel I have closure now. Also slight in joke about Shepard's nose when I had to recreate the character for mass effect 3 because for some bizarre reason I couldn't just upload the character from mass effect 2 like I'd done from mass effect to play mass effect 2 anyway I spent 20 minutes recreating this character, I wasn't completely happy with it but it kinda looked like my Shepard except he had this ginormous nose and all the way through my sister was making fun of Shepard's nose. I kind of figured that he got into a fight in prison and that the nose surgery went badly wrong but maybe that's another one shot down the line. So plz review and I hope you enjoy this.**


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